There Was a Country

For four decades, Chinua Achebe has maintained a dignified silence about the civil war of 1967-70.  Now, ‘for our children and grandchildren’ he has put together a very personal account of the Biafran War. The narrations starts with the ‘Things Fall Apart‘ author’s childhood in colonial Nigeria, then taking us to events in the lead-up to the war, drawing perceptive portraits of some of the conflict’s principal protagonist: Generals Gowon and Ojukwu. In a mixture of personal memories, poetry and analysis, Achebe weaves a brilliant and gripping narrative of modern tragedy shining the spotlight on the best and worst of human behavior.